My Monochromatic Telecaster Build #fender #guitar #fendertelecaster #telecaster

I love the movie Madagascar. When Skipper (the lead Penguin) calls Marty (Chris Rock) as a Zebra “My Monochromatic Friend” I cracked up laughing.

Sometimes I have goofy ideas for a guitar builds that actually turn out okay. They come from strange places.

Recently I purchased a Fender Jaguar that I thought was really cool looking. I found out that the owner had taken a Squier Classic Vibe Jaguar and painted the head stock to match the body. Video to follow. I thought to myself – Hey, I can do that!

I was getting ready to fall asleep and it dawned on me that I had a White Telecaster body with black binding. I also had White Lacquer Paint for another project. If I could find the right neck to paint the headstock I could make this project work.

It would be wild to have a Telecaster that is all white. Then reality hit me as I tried to find the hardware. I decided to go with a white guitar with black hardware. Kind of like Marty in Madagascar.

Next, I started my search to find all black hardware components.

I did find Fender locking black tuners, a black Wilkinson three saddle bridge, a black control plate, black knobs, and a black slider switch cap. I even found a black neck plate, string ferrules, and strap pegs. My black output jack plate never showed dup and is forever lost in the ether of FedEx.

I even used black stain on the rosewood fretboard, so it looked more like ebony.

When I finally had all of the parts and laid them out, I was amazed at how wild it actually looked – in a good way.

The only change I ended up making was going with a black pickguard instead of the white one you see earlier in the video. I just thought the black one looked better. Especially with black screws.

The wiring harness and pickups are straight forward. A modern Telecaster wiring harness that I built and a set of Fender Tex-Mex Pickups.

The assembly went really well. And…my paint job on the headstock is really not that bad for a first try. It is really close to the shade of white on the body.

What is really amazing is it actually plays very well and sounds great.